An anonymous, masked IRGC officer speaks candidly about crushing Iran’s January protests, the toll of Operation Rising Lion, Khamenei’s death, and Iran’s vow of unyielding resistance against Israel and the U.S.

The post WATCH: An Iranian officer confesses — Protests, war, and Khamenei’s death appeared first on World Israel News.

Two Israeli Air Force technicians under investigation for allegedly spying on behalf of Iran, with orders to monitor senior Israeli officials.

By World Israel News Staff

Two Israeli Air Force technicians were arrested recently amid suspicions they worked on behalf of Iranian intelligence, passing on sensitive information to the Iranian regime, Israel’s national broadcaster has reported.

The two technicians were serving at the IAF’s Tel Nof Air Base before they were arrested.

Both suspects are expected to be charged with spying for Iran after allegedly passing sensitive military material during the war, according to a report by Kan.

The suspects worked on F-15 fighter jets and are believed to have transmitted to their Iranian handlers engine diagram documentation and photographs showing the face of a flight instructor, material that is barred from publication under Israeli military censorship rules.

Kan reported that the suspects will be charged with aiding the enemy in wartime, and that authorities are also weighing whether to upgrade the case against one of them to treason.

The broadcaster said the pair were also allegedly asked to collect information on former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The case appears to be linked to an earlier arrest announced this week involving two young Israeli men accused of working for Iranian intelligence.

In that case, police and the Shin Bet said one suspect, 19-year-old Sagi Hayek from Ness Ziona, had been in contact with an Iranian agent for months, agreed to undergo training in an Arab country, and recruited 21-year-old Asaf Shitrit of Beit Oved to help carry out at least one assignment.

Kan said eight additional soldiers are suspected of knowing about the technicians’ actions and failing to report them.

After the incident, the Tel Nof base commander gathered troops for a security briefing and told them he had been summoned by the Shin Bet to clarify the affair, according to the report.

The allegations add to a growing stream of Iranian espionage cases inside Israel.

Earlier this month, it was reported that police were preparing a new unit focused specifically on Iran spying investigations after a series of arrests and indictments tied to Iranian recruitment efforts.

Reuters reported in December that Israeli authorities had arrested nearly 30 Jewish citizens over suspected espionage for Iran in what it described as Tehran’s biggest infiltration effort in decades.

The post Israeli Air Force technicians gave sensitive information to Iran – report appeared first on World Israel News.

Two Israeli men arrested for allegedly working as Iranian spies, with one of the two agreeing to undergo training in an Arab country.

By World Israel News Staff

Israeli security forces have arrested two Israeli citizens on suspicion of acting on behalf of Iranian intelligence in a case that authorities say reflects continued efforts by hostile actors to recruit Israelis for missions against the state.

In a joint statement, the Shin Bet security agency and the central district major crimes unit of the Israel Police said the two suspects are residents of Ness Ziona and Beit Oved.

One of the suspects, identified as 19-year-old Sagi Hayek of Ness Ziona, was arrested in March 2026 on suspicion of maintaining contact with Iranian operatives and carrying out tasks under their direction.

According to the statement, investigators found that Hayek had been in contact for several months with an Iranian agent online.

During that contact, authorities said, he provided identifying information about himself and members of his family.

Investigators said Hayek also agreed to undergo training in an Arab country and was asked to recruit additional people to carry out assignments directed by the Iranian agent.

The statement said Hayek remained in contact with the agent even after members of his family received direct threats from the Iranian operative.

During questioning, Hayek allegedly admitted that he enlisted the help of another man, 21-year-old Asaf Shitrit of Beit Oved, in carrying out a mission for the foreign agent.

Shitrit was subsequently arrested and questioned by the Shin Bet as well.

Authorities said a “serious indictment” was expected to be filed against both suspects on Monday at the Central District Court in Lod.

The Shin Bet and police said the case is part of a broader pattern of repeated attempts by hostile intelligence and terror elements to recruit Israeli citizens for missions intended to harm Israel’s security and its residents.

Israeli security agencies warned the public against maintaining contact with foreign operatives or carrying out tasks on their behalf and said law enforcement would act harshly against anyone involved in such activity.

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Mossad officials note that Iran’s ethnic diversity—40 percent of its 90 million citizens belong to minority groups such as Arabs, Azeris, Baluchis, and Kurds—creates fertile ground for recruitment.

By Hezy Laing

In the early hours of June 13, a covert commando team led by a young Iranian known only as X took up positions outside Tehran.

Their target was an anti‑aircraft battery forming part of Iran’s defensive shield of radars and missile systems protecting the capital.

Across Iran, dozens of similar teams—composed of Israeli‑trained operatives recruited from Iran and neighboring countries—were preparing to strike Iranian air defenses from within.

The operation had been planned for more than a year by the Mossad.

It followed the agency’s earlier dramatic success: a covert plot conceived in 2014 that detonated booby‑trapped pagers inside Hezbollah, killing 30 fighters and 12 civilians and injuring more than 3,500.

In June, roughly 70 foreign and Iranian commandos launched drones and missiles at Iranian anti‑aircraft batteries and ballistic missile launchers. A second wave of attacks followed the next day.

X’s personal story, related by the Jewish Chronicle, illustrates how Mossad recruits operatives.

Raised in a working‑class family near Tehran, he lived an ordinary student life until he and classmates were arrested by the Basij militia and tortured. The experience left him enraged and eager for revenge.

A relative abroad connected him to a Mossad recruiter. After encrypted communications, X agreed to meet in a neighboring country, where a Mossad case officer invited him to work as a covert operative.

He accepted on the condition that Israel protect his family.

Mossad officials note that Iran’s ethnic diversity—40% of its 90 million citizens belong to minority groups such as Arabs, Azeris, Baluchis, and Kurds—creates fertile ground for recruitment.

Candidates are typically met in countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Thailand, or India, where Iranians can easily obtain visas.

They undergo psychological evaluations, training, and detailed behavioral guidance to avoid suspicion.

For Operation Rising Lion, Mossad and Aman intensified surveillance of Iranian military and nuclear personnel.

Smuggling networks across Iran’s porous borders enabled the movement of equipment, often stored for years in safe houses by “infrastructure agents.”

Two commando groups, each with 14 teams, were trained for months—some in Israel, others in third countries.

On June 12, they took their positions. By the end, Israeli officials reported that every air defense target assigned to Mossad teams had been destroyed.

The operation culminated in the assassination of 11 Iranian nuclear scientists, whose bedroom locations had been mapped in detail.

On June 13, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at those coordinates, killing all 11.

The post How the Mossad recruits and trains Iranian agents appeared first on World Israel News.

While denying the charges, Paris apparently has freed an Iranian woman held on terrorism charges in exchange for Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Iran has freed two French citizens held in prison for more than three years on charges of being Israeli spies, President Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday night.

Cécile Kohler (41) and her partner Jacques Paris (72) were released from the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran and taken to the French Embassy in the capital.

Describing their release as “a huge relief,” Macron wrote on X, “I welcome this first step. Discussions are continuing to enable them to return to France as soon as possible.”

The two were on vacation in Iran in May 2022 when they were arrested on suspicion of spying for the Jewish state, a claim that both the French government and their families rejected as “unjustified and unfounded.”

After sitting in prison since then in conditions Paris compared to torture, they were convicted in court last month.

Without specifying who received which sentence, the Fars news agency reported that one received six years in prison for spying for France and the other received 10 years, while both received five years for conspiracy against national security and 20 years in exile for “intelligence cooperation” with Israel.

The BBC reported that “exile” has meant being “sent to remote areas” in other cases where this sentence was imposed.

France 24 said that Iranian political analysts are speculating that the couple’s freedom was granted in exchange for Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian woman who had been in French detention since February on charges of online advocacy and incitement to terrorism, as well as racial hatred and criminal conspiracy.

Esfandiari had been scheduled to go on trial in January but was conditionally released last month, although the prosecutor’s office in Paris said it had recommended keeping her in detention because she was considered a flight risk.

The Iranians have described Esfandiari’s detention as “arbitrary,” the same term France consistently used to describe the arrests of Kohler and Paris.

According to the French channel, in reports on the release, Iranian media only quoted Macron as their source, with no accompanying comments from regime officials.

Still, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was quoted more than a month ago as saying that a deal to exchange the French detainees for an unnamed Iranian woman was “in its final stages.”

Israel has not made an official statement regarding the case, which was primarily a matter of diplomatic negotiation between Paris and Tehran.

Israeli officials did not take part in public discussions on the matter, and Jerusalem was not apparently involved in the deal that led to the French couple’s release.

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While Iran’s counter-espionage professionals interrogated and likely executed squirrels, pigeons, and lizards, the real spies had been laboring for decades and their efforts paid off with spectacular results.

By A.J. Caschetta, Middle East Forum

As Iranian officials flail about, arresting hundreds of innocent people and executing “dozens” of alleged spies, now is a good time to recall that among all the things the Islamic Republic is terrible at, its feeble attempts at counter-espionage stand out as especially inept.

While IRGC and other regime goons search frantically in the most bizarre places for foreign and domestic enemies, an intricate espionage network has been growing right under their noses.

Israeli intelligence officers have been smuggling weapons, drones, communication gear, and even vehicles into Iran for years using “suitcases, trucks and tankers.” They and their Iranian agents have been spreading equipment throughout the Islamic Republic.

And what have Iran’s “crazy state” counterespionage professionals been doing?

In 2007, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that “in recent weeks intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran’s borders … The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence agencies.”

While the “alert” intelligence agents were preoccupied with spy squirrels, real spies were busy downloading the Stuxnet supervirus into Iran’s enrichment facilities, causing their centrifuges to spin out of control.

In October 2008, Iranian authorities detained two pigeons caught “spying” near the Natanz nuclear facility. Oddly enough, it was not the first case of suspected avian eavesdropping around Natanz.

The Etemad Melli newspaper quoted Commander Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqadam who confirmed the arrests and added that weeks earlier, “a black pigeon was caught bearing a blue-coated metal ring with invisible strings.”

As Iranian authorities investigated birds, nearby, undetected Mossad agents photographed the reactor site, mapped entrances and ventilation shafts, and took GPS coordinates.

(AI-generated image)

During the drought of 2017-18, Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali accused Israel of “working to ensure clouds entering Iranian skies are unable to release rain.”

Jalali, then the head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, claimed that “Joint teams from Israel and one of the neighboring countries make the clouds entering Iran barren.

Moreover, we are faced with the cases of cloud theft and snow theft.” While Iranian generals looked to the clouds, down on earth, Israeli spies catalogued the regime’s “safe houses.”

In February 2018, Hassan Firuzabadi, a senior military advisor to Khamenei, boasted about Iran’s success in detecting Western spies with an anecdote about a group of people who had infiltrated Iran with:

“A variety of reptile desert species like lizards, chameleons … We found out that their skin attracts atomic waves and that they were nuclear spies who wanted to find out where inside the Islamic Republic of Iran we have uranium mines and where we are engaged in atomic activities.”

General Firuzabadi, the former chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, couldn’t resist taking a parting shot, boisterously claiming that Western spy agencies “failed every time.”

Of course, the real spies knew exactly where “atomic activities” were carried out.

Prior to October 7, Israel had accomplished some remarkable feats of spycraft inside Iran. In addition to the Stuxnet caper, Israel killed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the director of Iran’s nuclear program, on November 27, 2020.

He wasn’t the first Iranian nuclear scientist to be eliminated, but Israeli spies accomplished the task with sci-fi panache using a remote-control gun just a few miles east of Tehran.

After October 7, Israel began eliminating its enemies throughout the Iranian terror empire, including Lebanon where on July 30, 2024, it killed Fuad Shukr, the Hezbollah co-founder who masterminded the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.

The very next day, July 31, Israel foreshadowed what would come in the Twelve-Day War by killing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Its patient spies had smuggled a small bomb into the VIP guest house months prior to the assassination.

The hit further degraded an already diminished Hamas, and its precision and timing embarrassed Iran’s leaders.

But it was not until the Twelve-Day War that Israel demonstrated the extent to which its spies have been studying their targets, learning their habits and routines.

While Iran’s counter-espionage professionals interrogated and likely executed squirrels, pigeons, and lizards, the real spies had been laboring for decades and their efforts paid off with spectacular results.

On the first day of the Twelve-Day War, June 13, 2025, Israel knew the exact whereabouts of Hossein Salami, Commander of the IRGC, Mohammad Bagheri, Armed Forces Chief, Brigadier General Gholamali Rashid, and Amir Ali Hajizadeh, Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force. None lived to see the second day of the war.

Also on the first day of the war, Iran’s top nuclear scientists were hoodwinked into attending meetings and then killed simultaneously.

One of them was Fereydoon Abbasi-Devani who, according to a Wall Street Journal report, recently claimed he had everything necessary to build a nuclear bomb. “If they tell me to build a bomb, I will build it,” he said.

On the final day of the war, Israel killed Sayyed Mohammad Reza Seddighi Saber, the head of the SPND, the agency in charge of nuclear explosion research.

The U.S. State Department had only recently come to understand Saber’s importance, having sanctioned him in May. Israeli spies knew where he lived.

A ceasefire ended the Twelve-Day War, but psychological operations continued. The normally secretive Mossad even released videos of its commandos assembling counter missile weapons inside Iran.

Though many top regime figures and nuclear scientists did not survive the brief war, those who did live in fear knowing that Israeli spies are watching them.

The biggest remaining target, of course, is Ali Khamenei – the “Hidden Imam” who has not been seen in public since June 11.

Right now, his bodyguards are probably frisking rats and questioning cockroaches in whatever squalid underground bunker he currently calls home.

The post Iran’s crazy search for Israeli spies appeared first on World Israel News.

Both detainees are held separately in Ward 209 of Evin prison, a notorious high-security section controlled by Iran’s intelligence services that operates outside the standard prison system.

By Jewish Breaking News

Two French nationals have been charged with trumped-up charges of spying for Israel’s Mossad

Cécile Kohler,40 and Jacques Paris,72 now face accusations of espionage for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, “conspiracy to overthrow the regime,” and “corruption on earth” which are all charges that now carry the death penalty in Iran.

A French diplomatic source and Kohler’s sister confirmed the new allegations Wednesday to AFP, though Tehran has not officially announced them.

Kohler, who heads France’s largest teachers’ union federation, and Paris, a retired mathematics teacher, were arrested May 7, 2022, on their final day of what began as an Easter holiday tourist trip to Iran.

Kohler had dreamed of visiting the country for years, while Paris had traveled there previously.

The pair followed a standard tourist itinerary and sent daily photos to their family WhatsApp group until their last communication that morning.

When Kohler failed to return to work the following week, concerned colleagues contacted her family.

Shortly after, France’s foreign ministry informed her parents of the arrest, though authorities provided no details about the circumstances.

Both detainees are held separately in Ward 209 of Evin prison, a notorious high-security section controlled by Iran’s intelligence services that operates outside the standard prison system.

Prisoners there face isolation and torture, according to Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who documented the conditions in her book “White Torture.”

Five months after their arrest, Iranian state television aired forced confessions from both prisoners.

“I am Cécile Kohler,” she said in the broadcast. “I am an intelligence and operations agent at the DGSE [France’s Directorate General for External Security]… We were in Iran to prepare the ground for the revolution and the overthrow of the regime of Islamic Iran.”

Paris stated that “our goal at the French security service is to pressure the government of Iran.”

Prison conditions for the remain severe. Lights stay on 24 hours daily in their cells, and they’re permitted outside for just 30 minutes two or three times weekly.

Both sleep on the floor and have limited access to books sent by relatives. In three years, they’ve received only four consular visits and rare, heavily monitored phone calls to family members, according to the report.

Iran holds approximately 20 European nationals, many whose cases remain unpublicized.

Between 2023 and 2025, at least five French citizens were released after months or years of Iranian detention, though authorities insist no concessions were made. French President Emmanuel Macron has described them as “state hostages.”

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The arrests of the Jews, who reportedly include several rabbis, appear to be part of a crackdown in which more than 700 people have been taken in since June 13, when Israel initiated its attacks on Iran.

By Larry Cohler-Esses, JTA

Twenty-four members of the Jewish community in Tehran and Shiraz remain in prison as of Sunday after being arrested along with hundreds of others in a sweeping government crackdown in Iran that began as fighting ended with Israel.

The arrests took in 35 Jews originally, according to a report put out Saturday by HRANA, the Human Rights Activist News Agency, an affiliate of the Human Rights in Iran NGO.

Mass arrests began early in the morning of June 23, according to the report. Eleven Jews have been released since the original arrests, according to a former senior Iranian communal leader, who would speak only on condition of anonymity due to concerns for his contacts in Iran.

The charges filed against those being held — having contact with Israel  — have the potential to ensnare many members of the Jewish community, he said.

Iranian officials have been hunting alleged collaborators with Israel following Israel’s recent attacks on Iran and the United States’ bombing of the country’s most fortified nuclear facility.

The former Iranian communal leader, who remains in close touch with the community, said Iranian authorities are checking the cell phones of those they arrest, looking for records of any calls to the Jewish state.

“Most Iranian Jews have family in Israel,” explained the former high-ranking communal leader, who today lives in Los Angeles.

“That’s why they call” the country. During the military conflict earlier this month, as each side targeted the other side’s cities with missiles and drones, many Iranian Jews reached out to check on the safety of their relatives.

“They are completely prohibited from any connection to Israel,” he said. But such communications were quietly tolerated over the years given the reality of Jewish family connections.

In the wake of the war with Israel, the authorities are now drastically tightening their policies. Under the new rules, he said, “They can accuse anyone of being a spy for Israel.”

The arrests of the Jews, who reportedly include several rabbis, appear to be part of a crackdown in which more than 700 people have been taken in since June 13, when Israel initiated its attacks on Iran.

Jerusalem described the attacks as an effort to stop Tehran’s development of a nuclear program building toward  Iranian nuclear weapons capabilities.

Tehran denies this. But Israel views Iran, which has vowed to destroy the Jewish state, as an existential threat.

Minorities are especially concerned over the detentions.

Last Wednesday, Iran announced that it had executed three men from Iran’s ethnic Kurdish population who were convicted of aiding Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, in the 2020 assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a prominent nuclear scientist.

The sweep comes as Israeli authorities themselves have boasted about the deep penetration into Iran their intelligence agencies achieved as part of Israel’s planning for its  attack.

In mid-June Mossad even released footage purporting to show agents within Iran laying the groundwork for air strikes.

But Israel has no known record of recruiting assets from within Iran’s closely monitored Jewish community, which today numbers somewhere around 10,000 people.

The community, which stood at over 80,000 before the 1979 Revolution that brought Iran’s Islamic regime to power, has generally remained free to practice their religion and organize themselves communally, including maintenance of their own schools and social welfare institutions.

They remain free to emigrate, though taking their assets out with them can be a problem.

Those who remain live with various forms of legal discrimination that sharia, or Islamic religious law, imposes on all non-Muslims in Iran, and social discrimination that prohibits their rising above certain levels in government or military positions.

But a 1979 fatwa, or religious ruling, issued by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic’s founding leader, forbade physical attacks on the community.

Under Iran’s constitution they are also accorded an official representative in Iran’s parliament.

Nevertheless, in 1999, 13 members of the Shiraz Jewish community were arrested on charges of spying for Israel. Most of them were haredi Orthodox, which set them apart to some extent, from the mainstream of the community.

Evidence used against the accused, who included local merchants, teachers and rabbis, included allegations of contacts the group had with people in Israel.

An intense international campaign on their behalf included the United States, France and Russia, whose governments challenged the fairness of their trials.

Local Jewish leaders in Iran also protested their innocence. Ten of the 13 were convicted and sentenced to up to 13 years in prison. But they were eventually all freed early, in stages, with the last prisoners released in 2003.

“Really, it was very bad,” the former senior Iranian communal leader now in Los Angeles said, voicing hope the community would not face the same situation again.

The post 24 Iranian Jews remain in prison as government launches internal crackdown, sources say appeared first on World Israel News.

Israeli special forces carried out two targeted arrest operations, apprehending Iranian spies who were gathering intelligence intended to harm Israeli civilians and potentially compromise sensitive missions over Iranian airspace.

The post WATCH: Two Iranian spies arrested by Israeli forces appeared first on World Israel News.

When called by his handlers hours before the invasion, the man said nothing was happening, so signs of the imminent attack were ignored.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A Hamas double agent fooled Israel’s intelligence agency into downgrading the indications it had of an imminent major terrorist attack from Gaza just prior to the Hamas-led invasion on October 7, 2023, Channel 12 reported on Tuesday.

When the Shin Bet internal security agency handlers called their source hours before the attack, he claimed that nothing was happening on his side of the border.

Since the source was supposedly on a high enough level within the terror organization to know if an attack was imminent, his reassurance lulled the agency into ignoring contradictory signs they had received and not even calling some other agents they had in Gaza for confirmation, the report said.

The weight that the security agency attributed to the agent’s words, as well as the absence of any warning from him in subsequent hours, directly weakened Israel’s preparedness for the attack in which 1,200 people were massacred and 251 taken hostage.

After the fact, the Shin Bet questioned his allegiance.

He was captured by IDF forces during the war and brought to Israel for interrogation, where he admitted that he had fed Israel false information while working for Hamas.

According to a report published on Sunday by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, Hamas’ intelligence agencies scored a major victory over its Israeli counterparts prior to October 7th, in part by using a number of double agents to reassure Israel that the terror group was still deterred from attacking the Jewish state.

The report cited a senior Hamas military official who said that it had uncovered a large Israeli spy ring in Gaza back in 2017 and convinced some of them to instead covertly gather intelligence on their erstwhile bosses, including information on the Shabak’s operational methods, and identities of other agents.

The official, Jasser Barghouti, claimed that these men were also used on and prior to October 6 as part of the “Al Aqsa Flood” plan in order to skew Israeli intelligence assessments – to great effect.

One of the major problems revealed in the investigations into the intelligence failures that led to the greatest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust was the security agency’s over-reliance on technological tools (SIGINT) to gather information on their enemies rather than human sources (HUMINT).

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The Central Intelligence Agency has released two Mandarin-language videos aimed at recruiting high-level Chinese Communist Party officials to “steal secrets” from the regime.

The post WATCH: CIA actively recruiting Chinese officials appeared first on World Israel News.

With the resumption of IDF operations following the collapse of the hostage release deal, Israel’s military has eliminated 150 Hamas terrorists, including 10 high-ranking officials.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

As the IDF steps up its targeted campaign against Hamas officials, Gazans have been executed after having been accused of espionage.

Saudi news outlet Asharq Al-Awsat reported on the executions from Hamas sources.

The terror group set up “revolutionary courts” to deal with those they accused of spying, and the source said those “who were proven to be guilty of espionage have already been executed, while investigations are still ongoing with others.”

With the resumption of IDF operations following the collapse of the hostage release deal, Israel’s military has eliminated 150 Hamas terrorists, including 10 high-ranking officials.

As a result, the terror group has become more cautious given the elimination of Hamas members: “Since the escalation of attacks, stricter security measures have been put in place at the political, military, and governmental levels”

The source also said that Israel ramped up its intelligence efforts using various technological methods, including tracking and eavesdropping on individuals.

The report indicated that Israel was able to expand its access to information about Hamas officials during the public propaganda ceremonies during hostage releases.

The Israel Defense Forces carried out extensive air and artillery strikes across northern, central, and southern Gaza on Thursday night, resulting in the death of Abdel Latif al-Qanou, a senior Hamas spokesman, who was killed in Jabaliya during a strike on his tent.

These attacks are part of a broader campaign aimed at systematically eliminating key figures from both Hamas’s military-terrorist wing and its political leadership.

In addition, Israel’s decision to block aid trucks from entering Gaza—supplies that Hamas reportedly seized to support its regime—signals a shift in Israeli strategy from solely targeting military operatives to dismantling the governing infrastructure that sustains Hamas’s rule.

In recent days, Israel has killed several senior officials of Hamas’s political bureau, including Ismail Barhoum, who was responsible for managing the organization’s finances and directing funds toward terror planning and weapons procurement.

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Tahrir Zafdi, a 21-year-old software engineering student, and his father, Bassam Zafdi, were arrested for spying after Tahrir allegedly gathered detailed intel on IDF movements, including pictures of tanks, soldiers, equipment, and weapons.

The post WATCH: Israeli police arrest two suspected Iranian spies appeared first on World Israel News.

Seven Israeli Jews arrested for allegedly spying on Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense network and other key targets on behalf of Tehran.

By World Israel News Staff

Seven Israeli Jews from northern Israel were arrested recently on suspicion of spying on behalf of Iran, Israeli prosecutors revealed Monday.

The Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court on Monday lifted a publication ban, revealing that Israel’s State Prosecutor has filed a statement of intent to indict seven Israeli citizens from Haifa and other towns in northern Israel.

The suspects, including an IDF soldier who went AWOL and two minors, are accused of being recruited by Iranian agents and carrying out various espionage missions on their behalf.

According to the investigation, the suspects allegedly gathered intelligence on sensitive military sites, including Israel air force bases at Nevatim and Ramat David, the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, and Iron Dome defense systems.

Additionally, they received maps of strategic locations, such as the Golani Brigade training base.

The suspects named are Aziz Nisanov, Alexander Sadikov, Yigal Nissan, Vyacheslav Gushchin, and Yevgeny Yoffe. The identities of the two minors remain classified under a gag order. The State Prosecutor plans to submit formal charges on Friday to the Haifa District Court, alleging serious security offenses.

Prosecutors describe the case as one of the most severe espionage incidents investigated in recent years. The investigation has been overseen by the head of the Haifa District Security Prosecution team, Shelly Brazili-Zaavi, along with Attorney Einav Itzco-Gold, and Deputy State Attorney Alon Altman, specializing in national security matters.

Authorities say the suspects operated under the direction of two Iranian handlers with whom they maintained direct contact.

Over the past two years, the spy cell is alleged to have carried out numerous missions for these agents, including the collection of photographs and information related to Israeli military installations.

Payment for their activities reportedly amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars, transferred partly through cryptocurrency.

Investigators emphasized that the espionage activities continued even during Israel’s ongoing conflict on multiple fronts, further underscoring the severity of the threat.

The prosecution is expected to request that the suspects remain in custody until the end of legal proceedings.

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The Iranian intelligence ministry and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence wing identify Iranians for espionage in the international tech sector, foreign governments, and Western military forces in two ways.

By Babak Taghvaee, Middle East Forum

Between 4 million and 6 million Iranians live outside of Iran, with tens of thousands working in military forces and government organizations in countries that the Islamic Republic of Iran considers hostile.

Additionally, many Iranians work in universities, Big Tech companies, and information technology firms in North America and Western Europe.

Although many do not wish to work for Iran, the Iranian regime seeks to exploit them for economic, political, and intelligence purposes.

Iran has perhaps the world’s strictest interpretations of citizenship.

While Russia makes its former citizens jump through seemingly endless bureaucratic hoops to renounce citizenship, up to and including proof that they owe no library books or fines, Iran requires an act of the Majlis to recognize the renunciation of any individual’s citizenship.

This is one reason why so many Americans and Europeans of Iranian descent travel to Iran on Iranian passports; the regime simply will not let them in without them.

That they charge exorbitant prices for passports and basic documents is simply icing on the cake.

The Iranian intelligence ministry and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence wing identify Iranians for espionage in the international tech sector, foreign governments, and Western military forces in two ways.

First, they use databases that track Iranian diplomatic missions in North America and Europe. Prior to entering the country, the regime flags individuals who may be candidates for recruitment or have their passports confiscated and held hostage.

Second, upon arrival, they force Iranian passengers traveling on flights from Europe to fill out questionnaires about their occupation, place of residence, and work, to aid the investigation and their potential recruitment as spies.

Those who have families or property in Iran might receive promises of exemption from property seizure to encourage cooperation.

Some diaspora Iranians seek to transit through Turkey, Qatar, or the United Arab Emirates to conceal their American citizenship, but this seldom works; Iranian intelligence is thorough.

Dual-nationality Iranians recruited as spies primarily gather intelligence about regime adversaries, including Jewish organizations and businessmen. They play a strategic role in spying on the Iranian diaspora.

The information they gather helps Iranian intelligence carry out psychological operations and physical attacks by contracting with local criminals such as members of drug gangs.

The intelligence service also trains dual nationals to infiltrate Iranian opposition groups. Their objective is to achieve leading positions within these groups, spy on their members, and sow division.

This tactic successfully prevented opposition unity during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests following the murder of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini two years ago in police custody, after her detention for allegedly violating the regime’s dress code.

Iranian Americans, as a group, are wildly successful, reaching the pinnacle of industry, government, military, and academia.

Many no longer wish to return to Iran, but those who do visit Iran pose a potential threat to U.S. security if the regime coerces them to do its bidding.

The FBI and its European corollaries must be realistic about the threat, even if the Iranian diaspora involved is more victim than enthusiastic participant.

The post How does Iranian intelligence recruit Iranians in the West as spies? appeared first on World Israel News.

Thirty-three alleged operatives were detained for supposedly tracking “foreign nationals” in a possible attempt to kidnap or kill them.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Turkish security forces have arrested 33 people in eight provinces who are being accused of belonging to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

The Anadolu news agency reported that police raided 57 locations throughout the country as part of a counter-terrorism operation. The state mouthpiece said that the targets were suspected of attempting to identify, track, and possibly attack or kidnap “foreign nationals” living in Turkey.

Thirteen others are still being sought in the supposed conspiracy.

In November, six weeks after Israel declared war on Hamas following its surprise invasion where its fighters massacred 1,200 people in Gazan envelope communities and a dance rave, and kidnapped some 250, including infants and the elderly, top Israeli politicians threatened Hamas leaders everywhere.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had directed the Mossad “to act against Hamas leaders wherever they are.” In parallel, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “They are living on borrowed time. The struggle is worldwide: From gunmen in the field to those who are enjoying luxury jets while their emissaries are acting against women and children — they are destined to die.”

Turkey does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization as Israel, the U.S., Canada, Germany, and other Western countries do, and many top Hamas officials freely visit and live in the country.

After condemning the October 7th attack in which the Iranian proxy committed war crimes such as systematically raping women and beheading babies, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan soon went after Israel instead.

By October 25 he was defending Hamas as a “liberation group” that “wanted to protect its people” and blasting IDF airstrikes on military sites in Gaza as “murder.” By early November, the two countries had withdrawn their ambassadors, after having reinstated full diplomatic relations only several months earlier, and Erdogan revved up his anti-Israel rhetoric.

Early last month, he called Prime Minister Benjamin a “war criminal” who would be “tried as the butcher of Gaza” in the International Criminal Court. Last week, Erdogan compared Israel to Nazi Germany, an equivalence that he has made numerous times in the past when championing the Palestinian cause.

“What Netanyahu is doing is no less than what Hitler did,” he said, as he repeated the Hamas claim that “20,000 Gazans” have died since Israel declared war following the massacre.

Hamas deliberately makes no distinction between civilians and armed forces in its count, to put Israel into as bad a light as possible. According to Israel’s data, the IDF has killed over 8,000 Hamas terrorists in the ongoing war, meaning that the ratio of non-combatant to combatant deaths is not even 2 to 1, a ratio that many military experts agree is astonishingly good in wartime.

This is not the first time that Turkish authorities have made mass arrests of alleged Israeli spies who were tracking foreign nationals. Well before the war, in July, seven people were caught and reportedly confessed to working for the Mossad. According to the local press, this led to 56 operatives being identified in all. This followed an arrest operation in May, and a previous one in December 2022, when 44 were detained as part of an alleged Israeli spy ring.

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